MCCOY’S MANTRA: ‘TRYING TO FIND THE BEST 53’

Chargers’ task of building position depth — or even adequacy — could take well into September

It is a virtual certainty he says it to his wife every night before he sets down his playbook and turns off the nightstand lamp. It could well be his admonition to the kids before sending them off to school each morning. It likely is his daily salutation to receptionist Georgette Rogers as he strides past her desk on his way into Chargers Park.

“We’re just trying to find the best 53,” he says in response to any number of queries, including ones to which you wouldn’t think that would apply.

Despite it being his standard declaration, I like to think McCoy is being truthful. Thus, here’s another truth, even though he won’t say it:

The best 53 are not in San Diego right now.

“I’m always looking for better,” McCoy said Saturday.

That is actually a far less-revealing statement than it might seem. Every team is scouring the league right now, assessing rosters and trying to predict which players might become available in September.

But for the Chargers this year, their scouting missions are especially urgent.

Their depth is reminiscent of a Motel 6 towel. It’s hardly enough to get the job done. It’s easily shredded. You certainly don’t want to use it more than you have to.

When the Chargers’ final 53-man roster is announced on Aug. 31, a number of guys who are on it should not be looking for permanent housing.

Depth is for protection for the inevitable injury, to keep players rested and also for special teams, which at present might make the Chargers’ 2010 showing — a low in NFL history — look merely mediocre.

With the way receivers are leaving the field — the latest scare coming Saturday when Eddie Royal was taken from Chargers Park in an ambulance after having difficulty breathing following a collision with the ground — they will be in the market for veteran help there.

It was also learned Saturday that rookie cornerback Steve Williams, who was going to make the roster, suffered a pectoral tear in Thursday’s preseason game and will miss the season. I can’t even begin to speculate which of the other cornerbacks presently in camp would make defensive coordinator John Pagano comfortable taking Williams’ place.

Manti Te’o is hopeful to return for Saturday’s third preseason game, but he remains in a walking boot more than a week after first putting it on. At inside linebacker after him, well, Bront Bird is a great story but not someone who should be starting.

Let’s just stop there.

There is almost no position at which we couldn’t make a case for the Chargers going shopping.

Usually a team has at least a position group or two where they’re overloaded. Get past quarterback, tight end and maybe running back, and the Chargers do not have an adequate stable, let alone an abundance to speak of.

They could have five defensive players on their team come the second week of the season that aren’t here now. Perhaps a couple on offense, too.

Former head coach Norv Turner at times could project shortcomings elsewhere. But he was positively Norv-stradamus when he departed Chargers Park in January with this gem about the deficiency of talent on the Chargers’ roster: “There are no quick fixes.”

Well, the Chargers’ new brass is currently faced with the leftover mess of that reality. But it won’t buy in entirely. While McCoy and Telesco have not hidden from the work to do, they are certainly not going to cede their chances to win right away.

As the No. 2 personnel man in Indianapolis last year, Telesco at least had a hand in the Colts signing 19 outside players between Sept. 1 and the end of the regular season last year. That patchwork played a part in a young team getting to the playoffs.

“We’re going to do whatever we can to help the football team out, regardless of where the players are coming from,” McCoy said Saturday. “The next two weeks become the — I hate to say — bad part of the business. We’ve got a lot of young players and veteran players that have worked extremely hard all offseason their entire careers, some young, some old, and you’ve got to make cuts after the next two weeks. It’s all part of the business. It’s not something I’m looking forward to, but we’ve got to find the best 53 guys.”

Some of those guys are currently in Seattle and Atlanta and Denver and Cincinnati.